Марко Коскас - Goodbye Paris, Shalom Tel Aviv

“Cut the crap,” the lawyer says. “Let’s wait for tomorrow’s hearing to decide. We’ll fuck him up right after that.”

Juliette is released around 4:00 p.m. and goes back to Tel Aviv on the first bus that leaves after Shabbat’s over. She would rather return in the Audi they arrived in, exhausted but in great form, as people are after weekends, but now she’s going back sad and worn out. She wasn’t even able to say goodbye to Olga before leaving the police station. They didn’t even let her wave to her, and that broke her heart. Just at the moment she was beginning to like her and find her so fresh and endearing!

Her phone rings for the first time as the bus is pulling into Tel Aviv through Avalon North, but she doesn’t answer the unidentified caller. Then the second time, still with a hidden caller, around 10:45 p.m. when she’s leaving Tachana Merkazit, followed by two quite sinister Sudanese, certainly in an aggravated state of rut, and then the third call, this time with Elias’s name clearly shown on her old Sony as she gets to Levinsky Street.

“I saw the light on. You’re back? They released you?”

“I just got back,” she answers.

“What about Olga?”

“They’re still detaining her, I think.”

“What d’you mean, you think ?” Elias says, vainly trying to stop himself from yelling.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were in trouble with the police?” Juliette asks him point blank. “You think I wouldn’t have been capable of helping you?”

“But… what are you talking about?” Elias retorts. “And helping me to do what? Would you stop trying to remake history all the time?”

“OK, too bad, I’m tired now. I’m going to bed, Elias. Good night.”

“Wait, Juliette! Wait, will you?” Elias shouts into emptiness.

He looks at his phone for a moment, as actors do in scenes when someone hangs up on them, and then he goes down and knocks on her door. She doesn’t answer, so he knocks with more force, he drums and bangs with all his strength until an alarmed neighbor opens up to see what’s happening. Snug in bed, Juliette then hears the shouts on the landing and finally gets up to open the door. Elias stops yelling and enters his old place.

“What is this sadism? Why won’t you say anything?”

“Exactly what do you want to know?”

“How you were arrested, for godsake, it’s not so complicated!”

“On the way there, on the road, that’s all,” Juliette answers evasively. “We bumped into the cops, and then I didn’t know what was going on, so naturally we contradicted each other, and then it got us into deep shit.”

“In other words?”

“Well, they saw we weren’t being clear, we had a lot of money in the car, then they went to look at their database, and then poor Olga began to lose it.”

“What’d she say?”

“They saw she worked at H24, so they asked if she knew you, and she said he’s just a colleague. And I couldn’t stop myself from jumping with shock.”

Elias slumps down on the seat with his head in his hands, indifferent to the cat, Jean-Pierre, nibbling on his jeans. “Oh no, no, no!” he repeats twenty times over, starting to sob. “I can’t stand her being in prison because of me… Olga, you understand, she’s the light of my life. If she isn’t with me, I go out. Can you understand that, Juliette? Huh?”

Juliette lets him pour it all out while getting something to drink from the fridge, but she can’t find much since she didn’t stock up at AM:PM on Frenkel Street that Shabbat. She does find an old can of Goldstar and puts it on the low table between two glasses.

“If you knew all she did for me,” Elias continues.

“What are you here for?” she finally asks him, trying to remain stiff, whereas she feels a soft abandonment taking hold of her.

“You have to understand me, Juliette, maybe what I’m asking you is cruel, but you’re the last person who saw Olga, and I need you to tell me more. Tell me she doesn’t blame me. Tell me she’ll get out OK, because otherwise I’m gonna die,” he says, holding his head in his hands still. “Snuffed out. Finished. Over. The guy’s had it. Like an asshole. The end of the end of his tether.”

“Why don’t you give yourself up?” Juliette suggests, still apparently ice cold but ready to fall into his arms. “That would really ease your conscience, Elias.”

With that, Elias raises his head, dumbfounded. With his eyes on hers, he repeats “Give myself up” several times, as you do when you want a word to lose its meaning so it’s no more than a sound.

“You want me to go to jail and lose my job and the little I’ve earned.”

“You’d rather other people pay for you? The Bedouins, Olga? Who else?”

“That’s the way you see me?”

“I get up early tomorrow. I’d like to go back to bed.”

“So go ahead!” he answers without budging, as if he has no intention of leaving. “Go ahead. Go to bed. I’ll just keep sitting here.”

Taken aback by the provocation, Juliette doesn’t know what she should do now. How could she sleep with Elias in the same room, at arm’s reach? He’s so good at rubbing it in, right where it still hurts. That love, that desire, that urge she swept under the rug and kept contained for months like a gas, only asks to explode out of her. On the other hand, she can’t imagine that the sincere pain he’s feeling can be reconciled with the idea of finding himself in the same bed with her this evening. Not so fast! Not already, honestly! But why not? She’s well aware that anything is possible with Elias, all the turnarounds and all the possibilities that are irreconcilable in principle, everything that can shock or even scandalize her, upset and even sicken her. Besides, would it be just, unjust, or totally disgusting for him to spend the night with her when Olga’s locked up alone in a cell in Mitzpe Ramon? Disgusting for Olga, yes. But for her? She’s suffered so much because of him! Doesn’t he owe her some reparation?

The novelty is that now Juliette feels connected to Olga in a very tender way, a connection that should grow stronger in the future. A real girlfriend. Being arrested together—that’s something you can’t forget. It marks you and leaves traces, like surviving a war or a shipwreck. So there’s nothing to be gotten from conventional morality, no solution to be hoped for from the usual rules that govern faithfulness.

Juliette goes back to bed and turns off the lamp, leaving Elias sitting there in the darkness. But an anguished sigh escapes her at the thought that Olga could see both of them in this room or learn about it one day. That would hurt her so much. It would just be horrible.

“Why’re you sighing?” Elias asks in the blackness. “You’re thinking of Olga?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re thinking what, exactly?”

“Nothing, let me sleep, please.”

Hoping to fall asleep, she tries to empty her mind again, or something like empty it, drive out the parasitical thoughts at least, the desires and fantasies. It doesn’t work. She’s awake, it’s nighttime, and Elias is there, within reach. She can practically hear him breathe. No use turning toward the wall, she can’t fight against the desire that comes to her from behind, as he liked to do in Jeru at dawn in days gone by, before he’d cut out and not communicate with her at all for a few days. And then, she’s sure he feels the same thing and has the same urge, despite his anguish and sorrow. In such moments, you’d like to be able to set everything right with the wave of a magic wand, have the memory of a goldfish and feel nothing, satisfy your urge without hurting anyone and without suffering, without memories and without consequences, thank you and goodbye.